This actually proved useful for TAR All-Stars (11), so I thought I would distill out the placement averages of the TAR:UB teams in their original seasons.

It'll be interesting to see whether as many teams average approximately the same as was the case in TARAS. I have no idea whether that will be the case or not.

What each column represents, then, is this: (A) Original season and Finish Order; (B ) Team; (C ) Original Season Placements divided by Original Season Legs; (D) Original Season Placement Average; (E) Ranking Among the 190 Teams from seasons 1 through 17.

Considering, Amanda and Kris 9th finished 11th, Mel and Mike 5th finished 10th and Jamie and Cara 7th finished 9th, and Gary and Mallory appear to have made it further than 7th I think it isn't as perfect and obvious as TAR11

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Remember its not just the order of finish, but their average placement getting there.

And please note how closely bunched most of the teams are in their original season averages. That may be an indication of a much closer Race, as 17 was, and as 11 often was, than having a few dominant teams. (We really don't have much of an idea of how UB finished out after what, the two legs in China?)

Considering, Amanda and Kris 9th finished 11th, Mel and Mike 5th finished 10th and Jamie and Cara 7th finished 9th, and Gary and Mallory appear to have made it further than 7th I think it isn't as perfect and obvious as TAR11

As I was trying to explain before, given the close spread of ten of the teams looking at their averages from their original seasons, I'm not sure one can predict the order of finish, as such. What I want to see is how close teams' averages are compared to their original season. That is not a function of the order of elimination as such, merely the average of their performance at the time they are eliminated.

I keep looking at the numbers and think what an outlier Zev/Justin's averages are. I know you have to do it this way, but they actually finished 1st on the leg they were eliminated. As we all know, they were eliminated because of the lost passport. Too bad there is not some way you could use the 1st place finish and still have them be eliminated. I am sure they would move way up. It would be, to me, more indicative of their true racing skills...but I do understand how/why you do it the way you do it.

Toni/Dallas, to me, were eliminated more because they lost all their money and had to walk and beg money. They really did come in last and were eliminated. The lost passport just cemented their elimination.

Anyway....I am sure glad you keep all these statistics. They really do show patterns and tendencies.

They were forced to walk because production did not have permission to film in the subways after a certain time, so they were not able to use that, although they could have afforded it I believe.

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I guess what I really meant was that there were other factors affecting Toni/Dallas's placement/elimination that day, besides losing Dallas's passport. The only thing that affected Zev/Justin's placement/elimination was Justin losing Zev's passport.

I have absolutely no problem with the_schnauzers methodology. I just think in this one instance, it masks Zev/Justin's racing skills.

He has them at 24/6 = 6.0000 for average placement. Since they did finish first, if you corrected it to 16/4 = 4.0000 and then statistically, they fit more inline with the other teams. I got the 16/4 by subtracting the 9 he gave them by being the 9th team on their last leg and eliminated and added 1 for finishing 1st on that leg.

This is just a very rare instance. They were not eliminated for coming in last. They were eliminated for losing Zev's passport. They were placed last for losing the passport. This probably doesn't make sense to anyone but me......lol

Here's an example of the problems this gets into with what ifs. The Globetrotters in that same season could be argued that they were eliminated due to the 4-hour penalty for not completing the roadblock. Even assuming that's true, what placement would they have had not only in that leg, but the leg for the final three that followed?

And you'd almost would have to answer that to address a comparison not only between those two teams (both of whom were cast in TAR:UB), but with the other returning teams, and make adjustments for any of the teams that might have had a change in placements for a leg due to penalties.

Now I'll repeat what I said before. This is not a tool to predict order of finish in TAR:UB. What I hope to see is whether prior performance of most of the teams in terms of average placement can be roughly predicted for individual teams. There was some of that in TARAS, but even there it got crazy because of the one hybrid team that did win it all, and if you only looked at Eric's past performance, was potentially predictable. What I think it proved is that Zach carrying Flo to a win was not a fluke; Race performance could well be determined by the abilities of the stronger teammate in some instances. That neither helps determines average placement nor placement order, but it does suggest an element for "Racer Mechanics," which I know I posted in a thread here at some point in 2009.

But from this cast, it is kind of obvious that the cowboys and the globetrotters had a better edge. They were racing against other alpha-male teams or all-male teams in the previous season they were on and had a more competitive race they needed to keep up with, as compared to teams like Margie and Luke and Ronald and Christina.. who although made the finale, but had no threat of a fit all-male team competitor along the entire race. I wouldn't count Mel and Mike or Nicholas and Don as fit all-male teams... and the other teams that raced along them towards the end (Final 4) are all-female or co-ed teams.

Logged

"The Amazing Race shows the best and worst out of you. But if only negative things are shown, then it's probably you. - Jobby"

I'll repeat what I said before.These statistics are not useful in predicting order of finish. They may indicate a team's average placement over the course of the Race.

One way to see this is to go back and look at the primary list in the "Ranking The Teams" thread. Look at the order of finish listed with each team. You will see that many second-place teams on average out-performed the winners, and some winners were out-performed by teams that did not make the final three.

So, you are raising an argument of interpretation, and you are free to do that if you wish, but do not make the assumption that the averages for the teams on TAR:UB from their original seasons are predicting the order of finish. I've not made that claim and given how close in those placement averages almost all the teams are, I don't see how that is likely to even happen.

As we're getting close to the premiere of TAR 18:UB, with no real further spoiler information on team placement than we had when filming was finished. So this is what I'm planning to do.

The primary ranking thread will be used to track each team's placement average, and the trends each week, and if it make sense at the time, to try to project the likely final three basis on the objective range of potential outcomes (as I did for TAR 16). This thread will be used to compare each team's average placement in TAR:UB with their average placement in their original season. As I mentioned above, I want to see how much of a difference teams actually average this time around compared to the first time for each team.

(I even have the source information handy so I could even do a comparison to the same week of their original season, but there could be a problem if a team lasts longer this time than they did in their original season. Think about it, it'll come to you soon enough.)

Since we already know about the TBC in the first leg, that leg will be treated for the purposes of ranking as two legs, with the TBC point as the point to rank the teams after leg 1A. No different than the rankings do with the other TBC legs. (I still like calling them uberlegs, since I was the one who came up with that one during TAR 6.)

This actually proved useful for TAR All-Stars (11), so I thought I would distill out the placement averages of the TAR:UB teams in their original seasons.

It'll be interesting to see whether as many teams average approximately the same as was the case in TARAS. I have no idea whether that will be the case or not.

What each column represents, then, is this: (A) Original season and Finish Order; (B ) Team; (C ) Original Season Placements divided by Original Season Legs; (D) Original Season Placement Average; (E) Ranking Among the 190 Teams from seasons 1 through 17.

The key is that the closer the team is to their final placement of their original season, the smaller the value of the difference. A "+" is an improvement over the original season; a "-" is a deterioration over the original season.

I should have mentioned last week that the remaining teams are listed in the range of best improved to most decreased average placements of their current average placement compared to their final placement of that team's original season. We may well see some movement after the next leg, given the placement trends (posted in the main Ranking the Teams thread).

So far only Kisha and Jen have been extremely close to their average of their original seasons, but most of the teams are within two placements of their original average at the half-way point.